


The Sweetness of Rum and the Bitterness of Regret

by fayrose



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alcohol, Explicit Language, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 01:48:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayrose/pseuds/fayrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Eleanor ruins her chance of making things up to Max, she consoles herself in drinking all the rum and picking fights that she cannot win. Set after series 1 episode ii.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sweetness of Rum and the Bitterness of Regret

Eleanor Guthrie did  _not_  grovel. Not to her father, not to Flint nor Vane, nor any other captain on Nassau. For the sake of order and the sake of her position, she had hardened her heart and set her jaw. Not that that had stopped Max from ripping out her heart.

“You are no good to any of us like this,” Scott had scolded her. “Pitying yourself and drinking half of our profits in rum. The Royal Navy-”

“Fuck the fucking royal Navy,” Eleanor spat, tossing her empty glass against the wall.

“It will be the Royal Navy who will be fucking you if you don’t-”

“Fine.”

“She came back last night after you passed out. Fix it or move on.”

The door to the room Max was using was rough beneath her palm. Its paint, once ocean blue, had blistered and flaked from too much rum and sun. She had painted it herself, determined to give the failing tavern a new lease of life and the prostitutes of Nassau a safer place to ply their trade. It had been noble enough, but her enthusiasm for appearances had not lasted long. Not once Max’s charms had turned her head. It was her voice that had done it that first time. So full of the wonder of life.

That same voice that called out from the shadowy room as the door swung open and one of Captain Gorman’s men pushed passed Eleanor on his way out, the stink of him turning her stomach.

“Au revoir,  _mon Cher_. I will be waiting when your ship comes back in. Be sure to ask for Max.”

Eleanor stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. Her sickened stomach lurched at the sight of Max wiping her hand clean. Her a satisfied smile at another wage earned disappeared when she saw who had come into the room.

 “What are you doing ‘ere?” Max bit, raising to her feet and brushing off her knees. She turned her back Eleanor to hide her nakedness and grabbed a robe from the bed. “Come to fuck me over again?”

Before Eleanor could answer her, Max’s eyes went to the coin pouch in Eleanor’s hand and she scoffed, her laugh humourless and cruel. She regarded the pouch with distaste, sucking in a breath through her teeth and finally turning her eyes on Eleanor. “So you ‘ave come to pay your whore. Want to reassert your claim, is that it?”

Eleanor’s mouth fell open and she dropped the pouch on the bed. It held as much silver as she could get at short notice, and a note for the payment of the rest of the two and a half thousand dollars that Max had lost out on. “No! It’s-”

Max’s fury cut her short. “You, with all of your father’s money. You want to make sure everyone knows that Max’s cunt belongs to Mistress Guthrie and no one else. Why do you not get one of your precious stamps and brand your name on it, eh? Then everyone can see who it belongs to. You can ‘eat it on the fire like a brand and make sure it never comes out.”

Bile rose up in Eleanor’s throat. She would never…

It had been Max who had suggested the deal with Noonan. They had been in bed, Max’s head pillowed on Eleanor’s chest and her fingers tracing patterns on Eleanor’s stomach. They had to sneak around. Make sure that Mr Noonan did not find out. He’d bloody Max’s face if he discovered she had been giving it away for free, even to a Guthrie. Their moments together were precious few and even when they did manage to get away, there were no such luxuries as falling asleep in each other’s arms. No matter how tempting the prospect.

So Eleanor had gone to Noonan and struck a deal. Twice what Max was earning in a night to recoup him for his losses, and Max would be hers from sundown to sunrise. To her surprise, Noonan had been delighted. It drove Max’s prices up threefold.

“Or ‘ave you come to pay your latest instalment. Do you think that you ‘ave to just throw money at my feet and I’ll be on my back for you again, huh?” Max fumed, picking up the pouch and throwing it at Eleanor’s feet. “You think I will open my legs and beg you to fuck me? Use all those pretty words you pay so handsomely for – like ‘ _love’_  and _‘I will never leave you’_? Or ‘ave you started to believe your own fantasy?”

Max’s words hit Eleanor like a fist. “You don’t… It’s never been a lie.” She swore, gesturing between them. “Not with me. Not with  _us_.”

Max scoffed. “’ave you forgotten what a whore is? A woman cleaver enough to trick you into thinking they are sincere when they tell you how handsome you are and that you’re the best fuck they ‘ave ever ‘ad. Do you not think I would say the same to any of my patrons?”

“Then why did you ask me to run away with you!” Eleanor screamed, her blood began to rise. She and Max had fought before, but never like this. It had always been Max who had assured her that what they had was real when the men derided it. It had been Max who had thrown her arms around Eleanor’s neck and kissed her with a smile on her lips when Eleanor had suggested that she not only pay for Max every night as they had agreed, but pay an extra fee to cover the loss of opening her legs during the day as well.

“Well I will tell you something,  _ma Chérie_ ,” Max continued, the endearment sounding fake and bitter as it fell like an insult from her lips. “I ‘ave ‘ad better fucks from ‘alf-cut sea dogs than I ‘ave ‘ad from you.”

Eleanor’s jaw set. “You don’t mean that.”

This time, Max’s laugh was as throaty and full as well aged rum. “Because I moan prettily for you? What do you think you pay me for?”

“I pay so that you don’t have to-!”

“What? Be anyone’s whore but yours? Because that is all I am. Your  _whore_.”

“Fine!” Eleanor shouted. “If that’s what you want to pretend, be my guest. It’s all I ever thought of you anyway.”

When she turned to leave, Eleanor heard Max’s footsteps behind her, then felt the thwack of the coin pouch on the back of her head.

“Take your money! I am your whore no more.”

With a cold look over her shoulder, Eleanor left. Her silver spilled on the floor.

—-

Eleanor shivered, despite the heat. She thought that Max’s coming back to the tavern had meant that she still had a chance, but she had been wrong. Max’s rejection had left no doubt in Eleanor’s mind that what they once had was over. That she was resigned to, but it was the fear that what Max had said was true that kept her awake.

What had it been? A lie? A service rendered? Had Max really used her like that? Had she been that stupid? Uncertainties turned over and over in her mind, torturing her as she took up too little space in a half-empty bed. It had been so long since she had slept alone. Even when the sun had been at its hottest, they had slept side by side. They could be sweating and still Max would curl up against her, call her ‘ _my_   _darling’_  and stroke her hand over Eleanor’s hip. Those were the moments that kept her strong when her father’s deals with merchants went sour and every pirate on Nassau seemed to be out for her blood. It was Max’s soothing touch that calmed her temper and flared her desire. Without her, it wasn’t only Eleanor’s bed that felt empty, but the whole damned island. Max had been right. Nassau was nothing but sand and it was Max she loved, not this damned island.

——

Sleep had come at the bottom of bottle of rum and the morning light that woke her scratched at her eyes like sand. If she didn’t have an island to run, she would have wallowed in the sheets of her bed that still smelled like Max. Instead, she had risen and dressed. The least she could do was show her face.

“Here,” she said, pressing the coin into the madam’s hand. “For Max.”

The tavern was quiet, but it would soon be full of pirates ready to piss away another day. She intended to well and truly dull her senses before then.

“My, my, our Max was busy last night,” Noonan’s woman crooned appreciatively. “I have only received payment for her services ten minutes gone. A pretty price she fetches for the lot too. Especially since you rationed her. All men want what they can’t have.”

Eleanor stopped in her quest to reach the rum. “What are you talking about, woman? I pay for-”

“I know what you  _pay for_ , sweet. If you want to carry on your deal, I’ll have Mr Noonan – err – shall we say  _reinforce_  the terms to our dear Max.”

“No!” Eleanor insisted, feeling sick again at the thought of it. All she felt since she had left Max was sick. Sick and empty. “Leave it.”

“That’s not up to you now is it?  Mr Noonan makes the rules around here. If Max goes around breaking them, the other girls will be at it too. He won’t have that.”

The woman had barely finished her words when Eleanor’s hand at her throat had choked them away. “He’s not to lay a hand on her, do you hear? If she has so much as a scratch on her I will throw you both to the sharks, do you understand? Flint’s ship has got a pretty plank and he will not hesitate in letting me put it to good use.”

The woman nodded, her eyes wide with shock. Eleanor released her grip and slunk off to the bar. She reached over and plucked up a bottle of gin that Vane’s men had taken from a galley headed for England, pulled out the cork and took a swig.

“The deal still stands. If Max doesn’t stick to it, that’s my problem. Not yours.”

Her only answer was the sound of the sea and first jeers of that morning’s patrons.

——

“Do you not think that you have had enough? You have been drinking hard liquor all day. I’ve seen men four times your size keel over from half as much,” Scott warned, shaking his head as Eleanor held out her glass to be refilled.

Her unfocused eyes met his. “It’s my rum. I’ll be the one to say when I’ve had enough.”

A burst of laughter from the table behind her made her wince, the shrillness sending pain throbbing around in her skull.

“Alright, alright. I’ll tell you where I was,” a man shouted, raising his voice to be heard over his rowdy crewmates. His name was Tolbert and he’s one of Vane’s crew, as much of an animal as any of that godforsaken lot. “Had meself Guthrie’s own cunt last night, didn’t I? Gave her everything I had, if you know what I mean.”

The men laughed and Eleanor snorted. If she had a piece of eight for every time a man had claimed to have bedded her, she would be richer than her father four times over.

“Then how comes I heard she was tucked up in bed with a bottle of rum come nightfall?” another man contested. “Missed the shipment come in on the  _Swordfish_. Her man had to do for it and the captain weren’t happy.”

“Fuck,” Eleanor swore underneath her breath. She looked up at Scott. “How much?”

“A little over six hundred.”

Another poor haul.

“Fucking fuck,” Eleanor swore.

“Not the cunt between her legs,” Tolbert continued, his boasting sounding louder now that the rest of the tavern had stopped to listen. “The one as was hanging off every man in the house last night. The one Guthrie’s bought and paid for. Only she ain’t her highness’ any more. Broke her deal with Gurthrie, ain’t she.”

Scott’s hand was around Eleanor’s arm before she could move. “Leave it. We’ve had enough trouble with Vane’s crew as it is since you scuppered their deal with Silver. We don’t need you provoking them even more.”

“Said she wanted a proper fuck for once,” Tolbert snorted. “Wasn’t up to much, though. Reckon Guthrie’s ruined her. Wasn’t worth half of what I paid for her. Dried up old cunt.”

The room swam when Eleanor staggered to her feet, the floor swaying like a deck beneath her. The colours bled and the lights flickered like fireflies. She was at the man’s back in a second, smashing her glass against the side of his head and shoving him face first into the table. The noise around them rose; men banging on tables and chairs screeching as people got to their feet to cheer on the fight.

Tolbert spring up just as quick as if her blow had only glanced him, though his face was red with blood and his nose was flat and broken. She had expected him to use his fists, but it was his foot that struck her in the chest, throwing her back against the bar. She rolled to the side but he was too quick for her. His knife sliced along her arm and she howled in pain.

“That’s enough!” Scott shouted, putting himself between them. “Raise your hand to her again and her father will have your head.  _I_  will have your head!”

But it wasn’t Tolbert he had to worry about. Eleanor stumbled past him with a bottle in her hand and a scream on her lips.

“Enough!” Scott repeated, catching her around the waist and wrenching the bottle from her hands. “Go and cool off. Now!”

Eleanor struggled against his hold, kicking and screaming and making a fool of herself for the whole tavern to see. If she didn’t make her exit soon the Guthrie name would be a laughing stock come sundown.

“Eleanor!”

As one the tavern’s patrons turned and watched as Max came running down the stairs. All was quiet but for Max’s echoing steps and the sound of Eleanor thrashing in Scott’s arms.

“Arrête!” Max scolded, grabbing Eleanor’s face by her chin and forcing her to look at her. “Eleanor, Come.”

Still Eleanor struggled, too drunk and too stubborn to come to heel at Max’s tone.

But Max was no woman to be trifled with. She took Eleanor’s wrist in an iron grip and pulled her from Scott’s hold. “Now!”

Eleanor quietened and let herself be let to the stairs.

“And you!” Max screamed at the jeering patrons. “If I ‘ear a word of this repeated, you will ‘ave to suck your own cocks from now on. Right girls?”

Murmurs of agreement came from the whores scattered around the room. Eleanor had more than endeared herself to them over the years. More than one captain had found himself short changed after one of his crew had gone too far with one of Noonan’s girls.

“Good. Then we will ‘ave no problem and you can go back to your merrymaking.”

Half way up the stairs Max stopped and turned back to the room. “And in case you were wondering, Eleanor Guthrie makes me come ‘arder than any of you could ever manage.”

Whoops and cheers rose from the men as Max left them, satisfied that her boast had gone at least some way to resorting Eleanor’s reputation.

——-

“What a mess you ‘ave made of yourself,” Max tutted, bringing a cloth to Eleanor’s blooded arm. “Always getting in a fight. You are worse than a pirate.”

Eleanor groaned and leaned back against the wall.

“And with one of  _his_  men? Is it a death wish that you ‘ave? Will it be Anne Bonny you are picking a fight with next?”

“Maybe I do have a death wish,” Eleanor slurred, her eyes closing. “What is it to you?”

“Everything,” Max whispered as Eleanor’s breaths deepened in sleep. “ _Vous êtes tout pour moi, ma Chérie. Tout ce qui est._ Do you not know that by now?”

——-

One of the things Eleanor loved most about Nassau was waking up to the sound of the sea. She smiled as wakefulness tingled through her body and turned to bury her face into the warmth of Max’s neck. She jerked when all that met her was a sharp pain in her arm and a cold, empty bed.

“I am here,  _ma Chérie_ ,” Max called from seat by the window, her voice soft and kind.

Eleanor rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, willing her eyes to focus. “Fuck. Why do I feel like cargo that’s been thrown about the hold in a storm?”

Max’s chuckle was sweet music to her ears. The sweetest melody she had ever heard.

“There was a man,” Max explained. “You ‘it him. He ‘it you back. ‘arder.”

The last few days slotted cruelly back into place in Eleanor’s mind. She tensed and gazed up at the ceiling for an entirely different reason. She didn’t trust herself to look at Max. Didn’t trust herself not to do something utterly weak and absurd, like cry.

“Is it true?” she choked. “What Tolbert said?”

Max’s sigh cut like a knife in her chest. So it was true.

‘“Stupid, I know, but I wanted to ‘urt you like you ‘ad ‘urt me,” Max said.

Biting her lip to banish her tears, Eleanor turned her back to the windows and her lost lover. It would take all of the rum in the West Indies to dull the ache in her heart. She heard Max rise from her chair and felt the bed dip under her weight. As weak as it was, she whimpered when Max’s hand smoothed over her bare leg and settled on her hip – a gesture so familiar it broke her heart.

“I should thank you for defending my ‘onour,” Max whispered, her thumb stroking circles on Eleanor’s hip. “You’re my ‘ero.”

Eleanor’s laugh was bitter. “I fucked you over. You said it yourself.”

“All is fair in love and piracy,  _ma Chérie_ ,” Max soothed. “You ‘ave plenty of grovelling to do before I forgive you completely, but I will forgive you. You are my love and I wronged you also. I should ‘ave brought the page to you straight away. No cargo goes through Nassau without passing through your ’ands first.” It never hurt to stroke Eleanor’s ego. She may be a woman, but that did not mean that she did not like to be told that she had the biggest cock on the island. Metaphorically speaking. “And more than that, I should not ‘ave kept my plans from you, when it is for you that I do everything that I do.”

Eleanor rolled onto her back to face her, Max’s hand never leaving her hip as she smiled down on the most powerful woman on Nassau, who was always so pliant to her touch. “I only wanted for the two of us to be free. I know that is what you want too. To be free of your father.”

“I shouldn’t have told Flint,” Eleanor admitted. “I should have come to you first, but when he told me that my father has a warrant out for his arrest…”

Mas shushed her. “I know, I know,  _ma Chérie._  You felt the navy knocking on our door and were afraid everything would come to an end.”

Eleanor nodded and Max reached out to brush the backs of her fingers over Eleanor’s cheek.

“Where is your father?”

“On Flint’s ship.”

“Of course ‘e is,” Max snorted. “Then we ‘ad better make sure, then, Flint gets his prize, eh?”

“We?” Eleanor asked, child-like hopefulness brightening up her tear-streaked face.

“If you will ‘ave me,” Max promised, leaning down to kiss her. But before their lips met, Eleanor put a hand out to stop her.

“You’re not my whore,” Eleanor swore. “I never meant for you to think that. I don’t want to own you. I  _love_  you. I should have told you before.”

“I know that and I love you too,” Max assured her, stroking Eleanor’s pink cheeks and gazing at her with a love that could not be faked. “I only said that I was your whore to hurt you. And besides, did you not hear that dog? You ‘ave spoiled me. I am used to better fair than these dolts can offer up. I cannot even remember ‘ow to fake it anymore.”

Eleanor’s smirk made Max’s heart sing. She rolled up onto her knees to straddle Eleanor’s hips, bucked against her and brought Eleanor’s hand up to the ties of her robe.

“’ow about you show me what I ‘ave been missing, eh? I has been far,  _far_  too long and you ‘ave a lot of making up to do.”

“Promise?”

“Oh yes,  _ma Chérie_. I promise.”

——

When Scott came into Eleanor’s study that afternoon, he found her smiling to herself and twiddling one of Max’s bracelets in her fingers.

“I see all is right with Mistress Guthrie’s world once more.”

Eleanor couldn’t stop herself from grinning. “You could say that.”

“Good,” Scott said, gesturing behind him to the tavern beyond, “because there is one hell of a storm about to come crashing through our doors. And I do not mean the weather.”

She should have known that her good mood was too sweet to last. “What the fucking fuck’s happening now?”

Scott had to laugh. Eleanor was certainly back to herself again. “You had better come and see.”


End file.
